W.W. Blackford

William Willis Blackford (23 March 1831-1 May 1905) was a Confederate States Army lieutenant-colonel during the American Civil War. He worked as an engineer, plantation owner, and railroad director, and his memoirs of the war were published in 1946.

Biography
William Willis Blackford was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 1831, and he learned fluent Spanish and excellent horsemanship while living in Bogota, New Granada, where his father served as US charge d'affaires. He studied engineering at the University of Virginia from 1849 to 1850 and was chief engineer of the new Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, and, while he was opposed to secession, he decided to join the Confederate States Army when the American Civil War broke out. He served as J.E.B. Stuart's aide-de-camp, first fighting at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. He started a journal of his war experiences, recording all of his battles from Bull Run to Appomattox. He was wounded twice and lost three horses, and he fought with Stuart in all of his cavalry battles except for the Battle of Chancellorsville. He surrendered at Appomattox Court House on 9 April 1865, and he worked as chief engineer of the Lynchburg and Danville Railroad after the war. From 1880 to 1882, he worked as a mathematics professor at the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College in Blacksburg, and, from 1882 to 1890, he worked as a construction engineer for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. He retired to Prince Anne County in 1890, and he died of apoplexy in 1905. His memoirs were published in 1946.